From the Republican Attorney’s General in the US – the message that policing the “global warming debate through the power of the subpoena is a grave mistake.” The Rep AG’s point out this is a public policy debate, and if other AG’s are going to use the subpoena’s to shake down companies like Exxon for supporting free speech on one side of the debate, then suddenly a lot of players are opening themselves to similar cases.
Wall St Journal: Two can play at Climate Fraud
Eric Schneiderman and Sheldon Whitehouse, call your office. The New York Attorney General and Rhode Island Senator who helped to launch the prosecution of dissent on climate change may not like where their project is headed. Thirteen state Attorneys General have sent a letter pointing out that if minimizing the risks of climate change can be prosecuted as “fraud,” then so can statements overstating the dangers of climate change.
Since the money in this debate is so one sided, it follows that a lot more people have profited from exaggerating the scare:
But the AGs’ letter points out that, “If Exxon’s disclosure is deficient, what of the failure of renewable energy companies to list climate change as a risk?” If climate change turns out to be less serious than advertised, then “‘clean energy’ companies may become less valuable and some may be altogether worthless,” the letter adds.
Insurance companies that sell products to protect from extreme weather, droughts, and floods might reap rewards from prophecies of doom that are exaggerated, ya’think?
Warren Buffett: “We’ve been remarkably free of hurricanes in the last five years. If you’ve been writing hurricane insurance it’s been all profit.””
Likewise, bankers can call themselves heroes while they lobby for schemes to save the world where financial houses scoop in brokers fees in a 2 trillion dollar carbon trading pool. Then there are all the companies selling everything from electric car batteries, to wind turbines, solar panels, pink batts, desalination, geothermal power, and hydrodams. And let’s not forget bio-diesel, ethanol, and carbon sequestration.
Trading legal blows is not the way this should be done.
We don’t think anyone should be prosecuted for engaging in political debate, but progressives have shown (see independent counsels) that they’ll cease their abuses only when the same methods are used against them.
If AG’s are going to play this card, the only response is “bring it on”. As I’ve said many times, many of the players on the Global Scare Industry are heavily leveraged in this debate. Whereas coal companies sell a product that most of the world wants and cheaper than most of the competition, the renewables/ electric car / carbon market depend entirely on the existence of a Grand Global Weather Scare.
Over the past 50 years southern Australia has lost about 20 per cent of its rainfall, and one cause is almost certainly global warming….Desalination plants can provide insurance against drought. In Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months.
So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems…
But in 2016 today’s flood alert for Sydney:
One of the biggest concerns was Warragamba Dam, which was already at about 98 per cent capacity.
h/t tip to Pat, Bolt, others.